When Seamus Finnigan returns from break it's to see his dorm torn and ravaged. Books lie sprawled across the floor, pages cascading out of them like little paper avalanches. The curtain are swirled in a crumpled heap, and Seamus is fairly sure that not even Dean could fix the mutilated dressers.
Thinking about Dean hurts though, and it awakens a fear so wild that Seamus can already feel his heart beginning to race. So Seamus thinks about the mess in his dorm instead, and how in the world he and Neville are possibly going to clean it all up.
He starts by gathering the fallen pages, scooping them his arms by the handful. Most of them seem to be textbook pages—"and stir the potion with a sil-"—but a few seem to come from a rather interesting book titled Twelve Ways to Charm Witches. One of them is covered in loopy scribbles.
I saw you snogging my little sister by the greenhouse, you know.
Why were you by the greenhouse, Ron?
That's not the point.
Let's play hangman.
Git.
Git. I'll go first:S P I D E R
HARRY!
Seamus feels two more pangs of loss in his chest and a guilt filled balloon in his stomach (if only he had believed Harry in the very beginning).
He begins to realize how eerily empty the whole dorm feels, so Seamus leaves to sit by Lavender and Parvati and to pretend that everything is perfectly alright.
Before he leaves though, he takes a sketchpad carefully concealed in his trunk and thrusts it into his brand new book bag.
The Great Hall is filled with students, but none of them seem very happy. There are gaps, Seamus sees, in every table but the one robed in green and silver. It makes him feel better, somehow, to see that other people have that hole in their stomach too. And then Seamus feels guilty all over again.
Lavender and Parvati are speaking in whispers. "Seamus!" they cry when he reaches them and it is not only joy in their voices but relief.
"Did you hear anything new over break?" Seamus is trying to keep his voice casual, but he doesn't think it's working.
Parvati shakes her head and her glossy hair slides off her shoulder and down her back. "I'm sorry. Just more . . . murders and kidnappings mostly." Her voice cracks, and she wraps her arms around herself.
Seamus feels the guilt wearing a hole in the bottom of his stomach, so he serves himself some mashed potatoes.
At the end of dinner Professor Carrow climbs to the end of the long stone floor of the teacher's table, and casts a Sonorus charm. Seamus clutches his book bag (with the sketch pad nestled safely in it) closer to his chest.
"Attention students. Place your book bags on the table unless you have been pre-approved. We will be going through them. If we find you have been carrying any banned objects, you will receive detention."
There is flurry of movement as students from every house but Slytherin toss their bags onto the tables. There are no cries of indignity, no shouts of anger, but whispers zing across the hall, razor sharp.
Seamus is not listening to the whispers. He is cursing his luck. Just how stupid could he be? They'd already wrecked the dorm; he should have just put it on the floor with the other books or something. Now they would look at the sketchpad—Dean's sketch pad—and see all the pro-Gryffindor pictures and all the anti-death eater ones too. And than, the last remnants of Dean's drawing's—Seamus's only permanent reminder of Dean's creativity—would be lost forever.
Lavender and Parvati have already placed their bags on the table. All around him students of all ages are doing the same. Seamus feels a bubble of panic rising in his chest.
"Lavender!" he hisses. His voice sounds odd, as though he's underwater. "I can't. They can't see what's in my bag. It has—they can't!"
Lavender seems to catch the panic in his voice because she turns around and taps him once on the top of his light brown locks. Seamus feels the tell-tale trickle of a disillusionment charm.
"You can sneak out to the lake. Leave the contents of your bag somewhere on the grounds and sneak back in. Now go!" Her breath smells like roast beef, and Seamus feels relief blossom in his stomach.
"Go!" whispers Parvati, leaning over Lavender.
It's surprisingly easy, all he has to do is slip past Vincent Crabbe, and he'll be free to leave the sketchpad wherever he wants. He almost makes it really. But just as he reaches the door, Lavender's spell wears out with a faint pop.
"Get back in the hall: headmistress' orders," Crabbe snarls, and, in the moment, he looks horribly like the pictures of his father in the newspapers Seamus used to read.
Seamus could get back in the hall, but if he does then Dean's sketchpad will be lost forever and what if . . . what if Seamus never sees Dean again? What if these are the only drawings of Dean's Seamus will ever see again?
Seamus has never allowed himself to think that maybe Dean won't survive the war before, and he finds himself paralyzed for a second, frozen in horror. But then Crabbe steps forward and Seamus doesn't turn back, and he doesn't stay still; he runs foreword. There is shouting behind him, harsh orders that fly through the air like butter knives, but Seamus can't hear them over the fear pounding in his ears.
And Seamus runs, just runs. He can hear Crabbe shouting at Greengrass to send a patronus to 'anyone really,' and he feels heavy footsteps thundering behind him.
But Seamus is on high alert now and once they've run past the Charms classroom, through the library, over the Great Hall, and into the dungeons, he swings himself up, up until he is perched on top of one of the large bronze lamps that line the corridor.
Crabbe skids to a stop, pausing for a moment to look for Seamus, and that pause is all Seamus needs. As Crabbe points at the lamp to light it, Seamus cries "Petrificus Totalis!"
Crabbe falls to the dusty corridor floor with a small thud as flames erupt around Seamus.
Seamus can feel his heart beating in his chest like a caged bird; he throws his bookbag as far away as he can muster before jumping down, half falling to his knees. But his robes are still on fire and it isn't until all his leg hair is burnt off and he's sustained a large burn on his shin that he finally puts the fire out.
He leaves the robes there, still smoking slightly, and clutching his book bag to his chest, hobbles on.
He knows where he's going now: to the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy and his dancing trolls, but he also knows that the castle is in high alert and if someone catches him there is no way he can run away again.
The burn on his leg throbs, raw and hot, and Seamus can feel tears gathering in his eyes. If he does this, really does this, he is giving up eating in the Great Hall with Lavender and Parvati and Ethan. He is giving up sunlight and starlight and swimming in the lake on sunny weekends. He is giving up the ability to even go to class.
But Seamus has to do this, he has to. He can't, just can't, lose Dean's sketchpad. Besides, his robes are still sitting next to an unconscious Crabbe practically tying him to the crime.
So Seamus keeps walking, ducking behind doors when he hears footsteps, no matter how small they seem. He knows Parvati and Lavender will understand. He is not the first Gryffindor (or Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff for that matter) to disappear, and they will see him soon enough.
Tucked cozily into her office, Dolores Umbridge adds the name 'Seamus Charles Finnigan' name to a list of wanted faces.
In a room far less cozy Ernie Macmillan insists that Seamus Finnigan just walked into the library "Yes, seconds ago, I tell you!"
In a corridor five flights above Ernie, Seamus reaches the portrait. Terry Boot is there to catch him when he falls through it, Ginny Weasley to hex the door shut behind him, and tens of others to murmur over his burn and try their best to fix it.
Seamus awakes to long hair brushing the tips of his eyelashes. Luna Lovegood is setting a crown of rosemary upon his aching forehead. He doesn't know where she got it, but he does know it smells like home and that now his eyes are stinging. Seamus ignores them though. Instead he clambers up and starts to plan, gathered around the fire with a circle of students that look just as tired as he feels.
When the moon rises (although Seamus won't see it) he will clasp his quill and write the first letter to Dean since the summer.
Dear Dean, it will say, I'm sorry I haven't written. I've been afraid that I won't get an answer. I'm afraid because it's been hell living without you. I'm afraid because what if I have to do that forever?
Or maybe it will say: Hey Dean, I saved your sketchbook. I love you. Just thought you should know.
But probably it will say: Dear Dean, I miss you. Please write back, Seamus
When Dean Thomas is dragged into a dungeon several weeks later, he will still have that letter tucked into the fraying front pocket of a blue jean jacket that still smells faintly of Seamus.